College baseball: Long Beach State stops Pepperdine

Long Beach State bounced back from a weekend series sweep at Cal State Fullerton with a victory at Pepperdine

The 49ers' top three batters – Jeff McNeil, Colton Vaughn and Juan Avila – combined to go 6 for 10 with three RBI to lead Long Beach to a 5-3 victory over Pepperdine at Eddy D. Field Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.

Trailing 3-2 in the fifth inning, the 49ers tallied twice to take the lead for good. Avila had an RBI single and cleanup hitter Ino Patron had a scoring fly ball to make it 4-3. Long Beach added another run in the sixth on Mc Neil's RBI single.

Long Beach State (22-24) struck first, scoring in the second inning. Zack Belanger started off the inning with a single, and after advancing on a pair of outs, came home to score on a single by Colby Brenner, who was thrown out at second base after oversliding the bag.

McNeil opened up the third inning with a base hit, and after a sacrifice and a stolen base, scored on a base hit from Juan Avila as Long Beach State scored again.

Pepperdine (23-21) roared back to take its first lead in the bottom of the fourth inning. After a leadoff single from Kolten Yamaguchi to start the inning, starter Ryan Millison walked and hit two batters to load the bases, and back-to-back singles by the Waves would give Pepperdine a 3-2 lead.

Jon Maciel was dominant in relief, working three scoreless innings to finish the game. Coming in for Long Beach in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Maciel allowed a leadoff single, but allowed nothing the rest of the way to collect his sixth save of the season in support of reliever Ty Provencher (2-0), who went 21/3 scoreless innings.

Cal State Northridge 4, UCLA 1: In Los Angeles, the Matadors got the maximum of the minimum as they were out-hit by the Bruins, 10-4, but won the nonconference game thanks to some solid midweek pitching.

Northridge scored three times in the first inning then had starter Bryceon Rutherford and four relievers nearly shut down the Bruins the rest of the way. Rutherford allowed a run and scattered six hits in four innings. Josh Goossen-Brown pitched a scoreless ninth for his ninth save.

UCLA scored its run in the fourth inning on a Kevin Williams RBI single.

USC at UC Irvine, postponed, rain: The nonconference game at Anteater Ballpark was postponed because of poor weather and rescheduled for May 21.

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